Heat treatment is applied to, for example, vehicle structures such as a center pillar and a reinforcement to ensure strength. Heat treatment can be classified into two types, namely, indirect heating and direct heating. An example of indirect heating is a furnace heating in which a workpiece is placed inside a furnace and the temperature of the furnace is controlled to heat the workpiece. Examples of direct heating include induction heating in which an eddy current is applied to a workpiece to heat the workpiece, and a direct resistance heating (also called as a direct electric conduction heating) in which an electric current is applied directly to a workpiece to heat the workpiece.
According to a first related art, a metal blank is heated by induction heating or electric conduction heating prior to being subjected to plastic working by working means. For example, the heating means having electrode rollers or an induction coil is disposed upstream of the working means having a cutter machine, and the metal blank is heated while continuously being conveyed (see, e.g., JP06-079389A).
According to a second related art, to heat a steel plate having a varying width along the longitudinal direction of the steel plate, a set of multiple electrodes are disposed side by side on one side of the steel plate in the widthwise direction, and another set of multiple electrodes are disposed side by side on the other side of the steel plate in the widthwise direction, such that the electrodes disposed on respective sides of the steel plate in the widthwise direction form multiple pairs of electrodes. In this case, an equal electric current is applied between each of the pair of electrodes, so that the steel plate is heated to a uniform temperature (see, e.g., JP3587501B2).
When heating a workpiece, in particular, a workpiece having a varying width along the longitudinal direction of the workpiece, it is preferable that an amount of heat applied per unit volume is the same over the entire workpiece, like in the furnace heating. However, a heating furnace requires large-scale equipment, and a temperature control of the furnace is difficult. Accordingly, in terms of production cost, a direct resistance heating like those of the first related art and the second related art is preferable.
However, to heat a workpiece such as a steel blank having small resistance by direct resistance heating, large current needs to be applied to the workpiece. In this case, it is not easy to apply a desired current to the workpiece. Further, when a plurality of pairs of electrodes is provided like in the second related art, an amount of electric current to be applied is controlled for each of the pairs of electrodes, which makes the apparatus complicated and large-scale.